Silicone Based Capacitive E-Skin Sensor for Soft Surgical Robots

In this extended abstract, we present a soft stretchable multi-modal capacitive skin sensor that can be used for exteroception and proprioception in soft surgical manipulators. A soft skin prototype was made using Ecoflex, embedding three conductive carbon grease terminal layers. This soft skin is capable of measuring stretch and touch simultaneously. The soft skin measures uniaxial stretches from 1 to 1.2475 within an error range of 2.6% and can also quantify as well as localize local indentation. An algorithm is developed that decouples local change, i.e., due to indentation, from global strain, due to stretch. An experimental study was conducted; results are presented.

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